Page 11 of With this Ring

With a deep inhalation to steady herself, she strode across the room to pick up the device.

Ashley.

Sasha’s right-hand person and office manager of Pathways Investigations—a company she now owned by herself after splitting from her one-time business partner and love interest.

At least this wasn’t a blocked number with heavy breathing and vague threats when she answered. Those calls had become more frequent, occurring more than once a day.

She’d considered ditching her main phone entirely, but clients still called it, and missing a lead could be catastrophic. Instead, she rerouted voicemails through a secure system, disabled GPS tracking, and kept a burner in her go-bag, powered off and ready. If things got worse, she could vanish off the grid in under sixty seconds.

Forcing her voice to be normal rather than rushed, she answered.

“I just got your message, Sash. Sorry I didn’t get back to you before now.”

“You deserve time off.” Even if Sasha couldn’t remember the last time she hadn’t worked.

Still, if Ashley weren’t on staff, there was no way Sasha or her three investigators would be nearly as organized or manage tokeep the billing straight. Right now, Ashley’s calm competence was a lifeline in the chaos of Sasha’s life.

“What’s up?”

“I’m working on a case, and I will be out of cell phone range.”

“Oh?” Ashley asked, tone curious, as it should be. “Which client?”

“This is something personal.” At best, her words were a half-truth. The invasion could be related to the Santos case, but maybe it was something else.

“You’re making me nervous, Sash. Everything okay?”

She wasn’t normally vague, but then again nothing about the events of the last weeks had been normal.

Ashley remained silent, waiting for more information.

Instead of offering it, Sasha changed the subject. “I’ll be late on Monday morning.”Maybe.Still, Pathways had clients who were counting on her, which meant this distraction had to be forced into the background. Nothing, nothing would stop her from doing the jobs she’d been hired for. “I have an appointment with Mrs. Santos before coming in.” Something she was not looking forward to.

On one hand, she had some good news for the woman who had hired Pathways to find out if her husband was having an affair.

He wasn’t.

But Sasha had uncovered information that opened an entire Pandora’s box filled with questions.

How had Felix been able to purchase the brand-new vehicle and have it delivered to his wife last week? From what Sasha had been able to ascertain, the man shouldn’t have been able to afford even the big, fat red bow wrapping the luxury SUV.

And the Santos case file was among the missing ones. Could be a coincidence, but intuition told her it wasn’t.

“I can open up the office, if you want me to.”

“That would be great.” Typically, she was first to arrive, by at least an hour. “And hold things down until I get there?”

“Of course.” For a moment, Ashley remained quiet before asking, “You sure everything is okay?”

No. Nothing was. The admission would make it real. And she wasn’t ready for that to happen, at least not until she had a better idea of what was going on.

Despite herself, Sasha crossed to the window for the dozenth time. Nudging back the blinds, she took in her surroundings, looking for any sign of trouble.

She’d constantly swept her SUV for scanners, just like she’d been trained—visual inspection, mirrors, magnet detector, even her handheld RF scanner. There were never any hits. She found nothing in the wheel wells, the undercarriage, or even hidden in the glovebox lining.

Since it was late summer, off season at the ski resort, the parking lot wasn’t busy. Occasional shuttle buses passed by, taking vacationers to various parts of the town. Carefree laughter and chatter mocked Sasha’s inner turmoil.

“Sash? You’re worrying me.”

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